The 7th September 2022 marked exactly 50 years since the start of the archery competition at Munich in 1972 — the return of the sport to the modern Olympics after a 52-year absence.
After being included at four early editions of the Games from 1900 to 1920, a lack of international governance and standardised rules saw the sport dropped from the Olympic programme. After many years of lobbying, much of it by FITA president Inger Frith, it finally returned in 1972, in a Games ultimately overshadowed by the ‘Munich Massacre’.
Archery has been part of the Olympics ever since, gradually increasing its profile and changing the rules to become more spectator friendly. Eventually, after years of lobbying by World Archery (then known as FITA), it officially became a ‘core sport’ — an essential part of the programme.
The first modern Olympic archery event was held in the ‘Englischer Garten’ in the centre of the city, one of the largest urban parks in the world.
Major archery competitions in the era had slightly more formal, elegant standards than today, perhaps retaining a little of the upper-class heyday of the sport in the 19th century. On Inger Frith’s orders,
